Conquering Perfectionism… by Listening to the J-Tree

The film industry strives for excellence, but it’s a very small step to start striving for perfectionism instead. We want every word in the script, every frame in the camera to be perfect.

Remember, however, that perfectionism is unachieveable – at least if you want to achieve it all the time. Striving for the impossible can leave you forever disappointed in yourself and others. In extreme cases, you may never complete a task because the outcome will never be good enough for you. At the end of the day, you will be very weary.

To conquer perfectionism, I found the answer in Nature. A walk in the forest and you’ll see all kinds of organized chaos. Trees seems to grow haphazardly; some grow right on top of fallen ones, ignoring the rich soil beside. Trees grow crookedly – like this “J-tree” here in the photo. And yet, it works. It’s beautiful. It’s excellence. It’s as close to perfection as it needs to be. It’s real.

So, you don’t have to be perfect. You just have to be real. For those who understand the weight of striving for perfectionism… what a relief, eh?